Time's Seasons Saga: Bad Blood
by Sinister Scribe
Summary: Rodama fic. The Fleet comes across some remnants from the first Cylon war and they will have lasting effects for the Admiral, the President and the entirety of humanity. Rated for language and the ick.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I do not own BSG, nor am I making any profit from this here yarn about them. They are just taken, shaken and then returned (mostly) unmolested to their former places in the universe.**_

**Hi folks!!**

**I'm new to the whole BSG fandom though I have been following the show since its first season and am now healthily addicted, I hesitate to say this, but I think it's better written than House MD (which my other readers will lynch me for if they find out I said it, so sshh). **

**This is firmly a Rodama fic so if you don't like, don't read. It's part of a series that will have many, many parts (I may be lying, I haven't planned that far ahead). It's an odd fic that goes AU pretty damn quickly, though I try to keep it in tone with the show. **

**This is just the first part, it's only five chapters long and I hope you read all of them. **

**I don't do flames, but if you want to be constructive and/or nice then by all means, click the green bar at the bottom. Other than that, I will return the favour, kick you in the balls, skoosh you over with kerosene and set your ass alight. **

**Enough nattering from me, on with the show!!**

**Chapter 1: This Has All Happened Before…**

**First Cylon War, Tarteran Nebula, Battlestar Cerberus, Then**

"Frak!"

Doctor Dana Colton swore violently as she was thrown to the deck of the_ Cerberus_ with a clatter. The bulkheads creaked around her and the entire Battlestar heaved and groaned like a harpooned whale. The impacts of the Cylon shells on the hull plating exploded with muted thumps all along the length of the ship and Dana was hauled to her feet again by the two crewmen that had far sturdier space-legs than she did. A haze of red clouded one eye and Colton realised that she must have split the skin at her brow when she had fallen to the floor that last time. She swept it away with one slim wrist and struggled back to her feet with the help from her security detail. Sparks flew from the wall, blown conduits. She could hear the hiss of some gaseous substance leaking from somewhere, red/amber lights flashed insistently and emergency crews scrambled to save their dying ship.

"Come on." The soldier, Colton couldn't remember his name, threw open the hatch and tossed her inside. Colton staggered on the main hanger deck and collided with a yellow overall clad ground-crewman. The man bounced off her with barely a glance in her direction, hitching the hose at his shoulder a little higher and clomping off determinedly on his previous heading. The fuel hose snaked out behind him with a reeling zap and Colton staggered over it rather than become snagged in its coils.

Soldier hands gripped her again and frog-marched her over the seething floor of the flight deck. Colton didn't know how, but somehow they got her through it until he was standing under the wing of…oh Gods, no…

They began to strip her. Right there, in the middle of the horrific chaos of the deck in the middle of a Cylon incursion.

"Please, boys," she tried to laugh it off and snatched her glasses back when someone tried to take them from her. "Dinner first."

They ripped away her white lab coat, her rumpled shirt and pants until she stood there in her underwear and then forced her numb limbs into the silver flight suit that all the pilots anxiously waiting for Vipers or the older Cobra Model Flyers wore as well. The thick helmet seal collar was the last to go on and the bulbous shell of the helmet itself was thrust into her hands.

Then she heard him.

"No _frakking_ way, Admiral!"

Colton turned, with no small amount of dread, and found the two most respected and feared figures in the entire military fleet of the twelve colonies. Alicia and Edric Adama, Admiral of the Caprican Fleet and CAG of the _Cerberus _respectively.

Edric stood towering over his twin sister, helmet clasped in one hand and the flight suit straining across his broad chest as he jabbed a gloved finger at the tiny navy suited regalia of his sister's petite form. For twins, they couldn't have been more different. Edric was tall, ranging and feral while his sister, the older by a full three minutes, was tiny, compact and had a steel will of icy control that never slipped. The Admiral was accustomed to issuing orders and having them followed to the letter, she followed protocol and got the job done by the book. Her brother, literally at times, flew by the seat of his pants and garnered respect by the steely glint in his scarred eye or on the end of his Cylon inspired left fist.

"You are protecting an important asset to the cause of humanity. Even you can leave a dog-fight if it means a chance to win this war once and for all." The Admiral stepped up, probably the only person in the fleet able or willing to, and went toe-to-toe with Edric without flinching.

"The HELL I will!" The helmet was sent reeling in an arc to emphasise his point. "I've got the best damn flyer you've ever seen and you want me to take it and run AWAY?!"

"Yes!" Alicia took one step forward, stepping into her brother's shadow, practically nose to chest with him but her eyes never leaving his. "She's the best damn hope we have of winning this war once and for all, Godsdamnit, I will NOT have you jeopardise that due to your stubborn pride!"

"It's not pride that keeps me here!" Edric loomed over his sister but a vein of tenderness threaded his voice. "You're the only damn family I've got, don't send me away to…"

The Admiral's eyes softened, the first time Colton had ever witness that happening. She unhooked her hand from behind her back and touched her brother's wrist with a light hold.

"You're going to Caprica, you're dropping her off and then you're turning right back around to get your ass in gear and scrap some Cylon metal. You understand me?" Her tone was just as steely as it had been a moment before but there was a husked note of farewell in it. She must genuinely believe, or possibly know, that the _Cerberus_ wasn't coming back from this one. Now that she was aware of the situation, Colton could hear it. In the engines, see it in the strain on the crew's faces. Feel it in the tremble of the deck beneath him.

They were all going to die here. On the border between humanity and Cylon. On the line they had drawn in the metaphorical sand and taken an oath to hold no matter the cost.

"You're my best." The Admiral's reply was almost drowned out by another Viper whooshing off-deck. "My best pilot and my best fighter. We need you to get her out. I need you to get her out. You may be the only one who can. You and that frakked up flyer of yours." She wasn't smiling, not in her mouth, but definitely in her eyes. Then she sobered just as quickly and took a half step away from him.

"Now go, Major. That's an order."

He held her eyes for a long moment, nodded once and slowly saluted her. The only person he had ever saluted. He turned away and faced Colton looking at her like she was stabbing him in the heart.

"Get her into _Betty_. Like I would in the cockpit. We're gonna have to get pretty up close 'n' personal in there, Doc. Hope you're not claustrophobic." He then started snapping orders left and right, slipping readily into the façade of CAG while his superior officer stood behind him, solid on the bucking deck. Legs akimbo and hands draped behind her back. Faintly lined face stoic and giving away nothing.

_Betty_ was linked up to the hauling trollies and wheeled out into the decompression bay. She was too big for the traditional launching chutes of the Cobras or Vipers and since she was the only one of her kind, there had been no modifications made to the Battlestar to accommodate her. She was, quite frankly, the oddest fighter that anyone had ever seen. Everyone had said so and she had either come from the mind of a genius or a madman. There was often heated debate on which Edric was or if it was possible he could very well be both and everyone _knew_ that Colton was both. They had designed the flyer together.

_Betty_ sat crouched on all fours. Two long wings, painted with feathers, acting as 'arms' supporting the weight of the cockpit that was slung under the heavy body of the craft. The tail was split into two and gave the vague appearance of legs. The canopy of the craft was settled between the two fore-wings like a face and two gyro-scopic cannons hung down on either side like arms. In her landed position, _Betty_ was clumsy, ugly and odd looking, but once she was out. Once she was in the black and stretched out into her full extension, she was long, lean and sleek.

Yes, when she flew, there was something of the angelic about her…but Colton had to remind herself, looking at the fierce countenance of _Betty__'__s _pilot, that angels were no more human than the demons they fought. It was something worth remembering perhaps.

_Betty__'__s_ crew, a specialised unit, got the fighter ready for what could be her last flight. They ran flight checks once, twice, three times and then motioned Colton forward as the cockpit hatch detached from the body with a hiss and swung down to hang open, revealing the innards of _Betty__'__s_ chest.

It was very much a one person craft. _Betty__'__s _innards were…the wrong way round for a typical fighter, but then, everything about her was. For a start, the pilot climbed in from below and straddled an odd kind of saddle that was the sole comfort inside the cramped fighter. The pilot would then lean forward and up, stretched out in a spread-eagled fashion and slid their feet into the stirrup controls and their hands into the gauntlets. The thing that made _Betty _so unique amongst fighters was how she moved. Not just in the regular way that a fighter moved with a combustion engine, but with the articulation of a robotic body. She could move her 'limbs' independently of one another and to great effect in a fight.

Colton was ushered up and into the cockpit, straddling it awkwardly so that she was arranged around the controls. Edric would have to get in behind her and still be able to operate the fighter. It would be a tight fit, but they would manage. Especially if they used the FTL drive to get the frak out of dodge and back to Caprica. Colton patted down the documents and data sticks that had been shoved down the front and back of her flight suit for her and double assured herself that they were all still there. Her research. Perhaps the key to ending this whole frakking war once and for all. 

"Alright, kids, chairs and tray tables in their upright and secure positions." Edric was suddenly at her side, leaning into the cockpit and adjusting her in minute but no doubt important ways. Helping her on with her helmet and securing it tightly for her.

"The main attack seems to be focused on our port side so you should duck down and under, fly straight for the heart of the nebula and spool out just before the sharks get you." Colton was surprised to see the Admiral's dexterous hands join Edric's gloved ones on the straps holding the doctor in place.

"Yes, sir."

"Remember, Major, get her back to Caprica safe and sound…"

"Then I'm turning right around and coming back here to save your sorry ass." Edric spoke without looking up. "Sir." He added as an after thought and swung up and onto the saddle behind Colton.

Colton turned away when it became obvious to him that he should not be privy to the look passing between the Admiral and his CAG. Colton glanced up and caught their reflections in the glass canopy of _Betty__'__s_ face.

"Frak it." The Admiral murmured and yanked suddenly on Fallon's collar. He was jerked to the side and down to his admiral, her slim arms crushed around his neck and grabbed him close in a desperate hug. For a moment, Edric was evidently stunned, but then his free hand gripped the Admiral back around her slim shoulders in a bone creaking embrace before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Then they broke apart, their eyes shining.

"Now go." She ordered them and finally drew away.

"See you on the other side, Admiral." Edric's whispered words became oddly internalised and then echoing once he reached up and clipped his helmet on with a hiss of pressurisation.

Everything that happened after that occurred much too quickly for Colton to properly follow. The saddle rose up and slid forward at an angle into the cockpit so that they were tilted forward as if astride one of the more dangerous motorcycle models back on Caprica. Edric babbled through their comlink to the CIC requesting flight deck clearance to fly. The doors leading back to the main deck clamped shut, the bay depressurised and the bulkhead doors slid apart to reveal Cylon strewn space in front of them. Vipers, Cobras and Cylon Raiders chased each other like sharks swimming through a black ocean. _Betty__'__s_ one of a kind engine _roared_ to life with a fierce bellow. The vibrations kicked through the craft hard enough to rattle Colton's teeth and she gripped the sides of the console in front of her in some vain attempt at feeling safe.

"It's alright, Doctor. You're with an angel now. She'll keep you safe." Edric directed to her even as _Betty__'__s _engine's throttled up and the craft tilted forward, slicing through the vacuum and out into space proper.

Colton sucked in a breath. She HATED space flight. The irony that her lab had to be on a Battlestar to keep it mobile and better hidden was not lost on her, but working in a windowless Battlestar was a lot different to flitting about in a Raptor or a custom fighter like _Betty._ She banked sharply, ducking down and swinging under the vast underbelly of the _Cerberus_. Colton's stomach twisted and she groaned when the wheeling stars did nothing to settle her rioting stomach. They were upside down when the burning plains of the Tarteran nebula loomed into view. Colton felt her every muscle twitch and clench in a nearly uncontrollable urge to be places elsewhere. She had seen what lurked in that gaseous field of space and had no desire to venture any closer. She had felt it madness to hide in the nebula's shadow in the first place and now she felt her belief had been confirmed when the Cylon ships had jumped out of frakking nowhere and pinned them to it like a Caprican King Butterfly to a card.

"Hold on, Doc, you really don't want to be sick in that helmet."

"Why thank you, Major. That would never have occurred to me." Colton snapped and she could feel Edric smirking at her even if she could not turn to see it.

Edric shifted, his flight suit sliding along hers as he stretched out his arms and legs to their full extension. There was a gentle whirring sound as _Betty _mimicked his movements until she was leaning out to her full stretch. Wings pointing out in front of her, arm cannons hanging ready and lissom under her and her legs tucked back ready to twist in the aid of turning with the rocket jets affixed to them. Colton had to admit that the design, while bordering on insane, was incredibly effective. Not even the sentient Cylon Raiders could twist and turn like _Betty_ could barrel through the air.

The explosion came out of nowhere.

Colton knew, in some small rational part of her brain that wasn't consumed with screaming in terror, that the shot had probably been a lucky one and could have come from either Viper or Raider. _Betty__'__s_ hide was as slick and black as it was durable. She reflected the stars she swam through and was damn near impossible to pick up on either DRADIS or by physically looking.

The engines whined, Edric swore -fluently and at length- and _Betty _was sent into a crazy tail-spin that Colton knew meant bad things for the unfortunate pilots caught inside.

"Guidance is offline. FTL nota good plan."_Betty_ herself spoke for the first time within hearing of someone other than Edric.

"We've got to, Betty." Edric gritted through his teeth. "You remember where Caprica is. You know what's at stake."

"I could kill you both."

"We'll die if we stay. You're our best chance."

"You're aware that you're talking to a machine, right?!" Colton twisted to stare at him, the stars spun around outside the window and nausea rolled up in her throat. She shut her eyes and gripped harder on whatever it was she was holding onto, which turned out to be Edric's muscle bunched arms.

"And I'll say to you what your father said to me when he rolled the first one of those frakking toasters off the production line; 'we're all of us machines'." Edric grunted and tried to wrestle control of _Betty_ again. The plume of a rocket swung into their spinning line of sight and Colton's heart crawled up into her throat and threatened to suffocate her in panic.

"Betty!" Edric yelled.

"I see it." Betty seemed oddly calm about the whole impending doom thing.

"Jump us, now!"

"You could die."

"We definitely will if we stay. JUMP US!"

"Blind?"

"NOW, BETTY!" Edric roared through the com and the booming whine of an FTL spooling up reverberated through the craft. The rocket zoomed towards them. Colton pushed back and thumped against Edric's chest in a vain attempt to get away from its onward rush towards them. Her hand pressed up against the glass and the FTL drive chose that moment to kick in.

Colton watched as her hand seemed to stretch into the distance and the stars bulged in through the canopy towards her. The entire universe ballooned outwards and crushed in all at the same time. The black void of space became white and the stars spatterings of ink. Everything exploded in a second Big Bang and it occurred to Colton that she was about to die without ever fixing what her father had done.

$inister $cribe

Battlestar _Galactica_, Uncharted Territories, Now

"And you think that this legendary ship, the ah," Here the President flipped open the folder that the Admiral had given her and scanned it until she found the right piece of information. "The _Betty_, is in _Galactica's_ main hangar right now?" She couldn't resist a small smile. William Adama had just recounted to her the mythic tale of a brave young pilot who had risked everything to bring the last hope of winning the Cylon war (the first one that was) with him back to Caprica despite the crippled state of his unique flyer.

"I'm saying it's a possibility, Madame President." A smile lit his eyes and she was glad to see it. These past few days had been hard on them and it was good to see anybody smile. Monumental to see the President or the Admiral of the Fleet doing it. However, there they both were, moving along the corridors of _Galactica_, chatting compatibly and their respective entourages trailing behind them at a respectable distance. "A blind jump could have taken them anywhere in the universe. Carbon-dating confirms the flyer's age. Damage to the port wing is consistent with the last black box reports that the _Cerberus_ received before Major Adama and Doctor Colton could bug out…it's interesting." He defended himself against her secret indulgent smile. The one that did nearly as much for him as those frak-me eyes that she sometimes wore.

Thoughts front and centre, he ordered himself and managed to scramble himself back into a vaguely professional frame of mind.

"Uh-huh." She was teasing him. They both knew it. He felt compelled to explain.

"It's an old family story. My grandmother was very close to her brother despite them being so different. She spoke often of him towards the end of her life. She always wondered what had happened to him."

"And you can't resist the urge to find out." She was out and out grinning now as they rounded the bend towards the hatch leading into the pressurised hangar where the possible _Betty_ had been stored. A team of technicians were standing by ready to open the cockpit upon the arrival of the President and the Admiral and it was all Adama could do to contain his excitement.

"I never pictured you for a romantic."

Adama shot her a look that informed her she was flirting with danger there. Or just plain flirting. He wasn't exactly sure where the line stopped them these days. They stepped through the hatch together, laughing gently at one another and then, together, fell silent when the shadow of the behemoth _Betty _fell over them.

"Good Gods…" Roslin took a step back and reached up to remove her glasses. She stared at the flyer from bow to stern and swallowed hard. "That's…"

"Interesting, isn't it?" Adama finished for her and she turned on him with narrowed eyes.

"You've already been down here." It was not a question but he nodded anyway.

"Then I heard you had a scheduled visit anyway and thought your curiosity could be roused."

Had she imagined the gleam in his dark eyes when he had said that? Surely not? Surely Adama wasn't so openly…_flirting_ with her?

They had arrived just in time to see the techs throwing their backs into opening the hatch to the cockpit. It was dirty work. The once gleaming hull of the flyer was corroded and battered with age. Scorch and blaster marks scored the beaten shell. With a sudden decompress hiss, the cockpit disengaged and swung down from the main body of the flyer.

Laura gave a very un-Presidential squeak of alarm and scooted backwards several steps when a rush of some kind of viscous liquid splashed down out of the canopy and splattered across the floor. Adama stepped between her and it, stretching his arm out across her body as if to shield her. When they both realised how simultaneously ridiculous they both looked, they stepped apart with mutual clearing of throats.

Laura wasn't certain but she was pretty sure she had just heard one of Adama's security detail _snigger. _She gave the man in question her uninhibited 'I have an airlock and I'm not afraid to use it' glare and he coughed before avoiding her gaze further.

Damn straight. You didn't get to be President of the Twelve Colonies without perfecting that look.

The techs jumped forward in time to catch the two bodies that slumped down and out of the gloop in their baggy antiquated flight suits. The tech that caught the first body grunted in surprise and crashed to one knee.

"Frak, they're heavy!" He grunted hard and then flopped clumsily, the body weighing him down…which made no real sense since he was built like a bull in comparison to the slight remains in evidence in the flight suit. "Hey, hey, look at her face." The tech breathed out when he hefted the body onto the waiting gurney. "She's…" He trailed off as if suddenly remembering the company he was keeping and stepped back from the gurney.

Roslin (who would never admit that the Admiral had so easily ensnared her curiosity) stepped around the slick puddles on the floor and picked her way to the gurney's side. She leant over the reclining body and blinked in surprise.

So this was Doctor Dana Colton. Laura had a gift for absorbing vast amounts of information in a very short time and so had been able to read the lengthy but mostly classified military docket that Colton had built up over her forty year career in the Military Scientific Intelligence Branch on the way down here, but nowhere in that cut and dried file had it said she was so young.

Impossibly young.

Impossibly because her file had said that she was sixty-six years old when she had gone on _Betty's_ final flight, but this woman was…thirty five at the very most. Which made absolutely no sense. Unless she was… not Dana Colton and was instead…a Cylon. Which made everything neat and tidy except for the glaring fact that she matched her sixty year old ID picture in her file perfectly.

Either way, she was quite striking. Pale skin, a smattering of pale freckles over her nose that was slightly too big for her face and lean high cheekbones with a sharp jaw line gave her an almost hawkish appearance if not for her thickly lashed eyes and full mouth that would no doubt soften her features if she had been alive and conscious. She still wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose after all those decades in space and dark brown, almost black hair hung feathery and long about her face like she had cut it if and when she had needed to rather than had it styled. Roslin was reminded strongly of a tale her mother had told her as a child about a princess entombed in a glass coffin, Laura nearly rolled her eyes at herself. Doctor Colton didn't look exactly like the princess type. Well, that was what Chamalla extract did to one after the second or third cup of the day. See? Her memory was going, what had she been thinking about?

Ah yes, the improbable health of the corpse in the flight suit on the gurney.

"She's perfectly preserved." Adama noted in her ear and Roslin swallowed down another un-Presidential squeak. She hadn't realised he was standing so close. She had been too busy pondering that same oddity herself.

"Suits are vacuum sealed aren't they?"

"Hmm…still, you'd expect some desiccation."

"I wouldn't know. Don't spend a lot of time around dead bodies."

Adama just gave her a small glare and she smirked at him, which felt decidedly odd while standing over a body so she backed off a little.

"Take them up to Doc Cottle? He'll be able to better identify them." She asked Adama and he nodded still standing over Colton's body.

"Strange, I expected her to be…"

"Taller?" Roslin demanded dryly.

"Older. I was going to say 'older'." The Admiral quickly put in his defence.

"Do you think autopsies will be necessary?" Roslin folded her arms over her chest and decided that she couldn't be jealous of the way Bill was paying so much attention to a corpse because 1) It was a corpse and that was just weird. 2) Little to no competition to be had from dead bodies and 3) She had no real claim over Bill Adama because of those frakking 'responsibilities'…though she'd airlock anyone of the female persuasion who had the temerity to suggest otherwise.

"If only to discern that they really are human, then yes." Adama agreed calmly.

Of course, calm went out the launch tubes faster than a Raptor emergency launch when the other dead body jumped up off the gurney, unsheathed the knife on his thigh holster and pressed it to the President's neck with a chilling skill. His helmet hit the floor with a clang and his mismatched scarred eyes glared at the occupants of the hanger.

"You might want to rethink that autopsy suggestion, darlin'. I'm not quite dead yet." Edric Adama's voice sounded like it had come from the dead as it rasped throughout the hangar and everyone stilled.

"Well," Roslin muttered. "Frak me."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Okies, since I had such positive feedback from the first chapter I thought I'd go right ahead and post the second. Especially since someone (you know who you are) was prodding me to update. **_

_**For those that want to know, Edric Adama is played by The Rock or Dwayne Johnson (I think I spelled that right) who is a surprisingly good actor and sings quite wonderfully (watch Gameplan, I dare ya). **_

_**Doctor Dana Colton (after much deliberation) is played by Julianne Moore, but with black, messy cut hair and probably contacts. **_

_**Geminon is also a representation of Great Britain the same way Caprica is a representation of America. Northern Geminon being similar to the celtic side of the country ie Scottish, Irish or Welsh. Her accent is somewhere mixed up in that. The animosity between the North and the South is the same as it is in Britain (which you will only get if you happen to be British, and that DOES mean from the whole of the British Isles and not just England). **_

_**The second in the series is giving me a little bother trying to get right soooo, it may be a while between the first and second parts. **_

_**But, on with the show!!**_

_**Hit that green buuutttooooooonnn!!!!!**_

**Chapter 2: The All Important First Impression**

"Back off!" Edric took the gun from the holster at his hip and aimed it over Roslin's shoulder at a blurred shape that he took to be an advancing crewman. "I'm only gonna say this once so listen carefully. I can't see very well at the moment and can't tell friendly from non-friendly. So, unless you want Roslin's suit redecorated arterial red, I suggest you stay very frakking still."

"Identify yourself."

Edric jerked at the voice. It sounded familiar. The woman in his grip, Roslin, winced when the knife was pressed harder at her throat but did not whimper or cringe. Odd.

"Major Edric Adama of the Caprican Colonial Fleet. Who the frak are you? Why the frak am I half blind? What's this about autopsies?"

"We thought you were dead. We wanted to know why." Roslin spoke calmly.

"You never heard of checking for a pulse?"

"You should be dead, Major. By all accounts your over a hundred and twenty years old."

Edric went very, very still.

"What…?"

"The _Betty _has been missing for the past sixty years. You were presumed dead." Roslin worked very hard not to struggle like she wanted to. The gloop covering Edric was now liberally smeared over her too and Roslin wanted to deck the man for crimes against her only pantsuit if nothing else. It was cold and sticky and clung to the skin of her neck and cheek. She wanted to wipe it away but refused herself the movement.

"Okay, whatever, where's the doctor?"

"Doc Cottle's in the medical bay." Adama, her Adama, answered. Edric jerked again at the sound of the voice and Roslin was yanked backwards so harshly she thought she might fall, her hands went to the arm across her neck and more of the gunge was smeered cold and disgusting across her cheek.

"Who the frak is Doc Cottle?" Edric gestured with his pistol. "Not THAT doctor, my Doctor. Doctor Colton. Where is she? I didn't come all this way to frakking lose her!"

"She's right here, on the gurney." Adama's voice was level and almost sounded calm, but Roslin could pick up on the icy notes of fury threading through it. If Edric really was Adama's great uncle, the family reunion wasn't shaping up to be a very happy affair.

"Take off her helmet. Check her pulse." When nobody moved the gun was swung around and dug sharply into Roslin's temple. "Now!"

"Don't!" Adama stepped forward and the gun then swivelled onto him, gloop splattered from Edric's arm and sluiced over Adama with a squelch. He made a small sound of disgust and smeared it from his face, but otherwise stayed where he was. "Alright, alright, but take the knife away from her throat. You're cutting her."

Edric glanced down and saw the thin trickle of read ebbing from the tip of the knife. The colour seemed lurid against the pale column of the woman's throat. He felt like a cowardly bastard taking a woman hostage, but he needed leverage and he needed information. She had been closest, if he'd been able to reach the guy, he'd have grabbed him instead, but he hadn't, so he couldn't.

Adama looked over to one of the techs, everyone was holding themselves in that hyper-still way one does when they don't want to spook the rattle snake coiled in their path. He nodded to the one nearest to the Doctor's gurney and, with barely shaking hands, the tech unclipped the helmet and carefully removed it. Colton's head lolled against the bed of the gurney and her mahogany and ebony hair spilled in a long trailing banner over the side.

"Check her pulse." Adama ordered in his gravel tones. The tech hesitated and earned a flint glare for his troubles. His hand went to the pale neck under the bulky helmet seal collar and groped for a pulse.

He didn't even see the leg before it swung up and cracked into the side of his head. The tech went sprawling, people started swearing and swinging to take aim at the new threat and Colton tumbled, choking, from the gurney. She flipped over to roll to a crouch, staggered backwards to her feet and went crashing straight into Adama's chest. He automatically grabbed hold of her to steady her when she began to cough in great wracking heaves, struggling clumsily against Adama's hold. More of that gunk both of _Betty's_ passengers were caked in, smeared copiously all over his uniform and a great deal of it over his face. He was disheartened to realise that some of it got into his mouth. He grimaced but held grimly onto the struggling woman.

He had Edric's just as Edric had his.

"Give her to me." The gun was levelled at Adama again. Edric's rapid blinking and bloodshot eyes made Adama think that the other man might not be sure enough in his aim to blow Adama's head off without risking his Doctor's life.

"Trade. Yours for mine."

Edric squinted blinked a few more times and then nodded. "On three. You lie to me and I'll blow you away."

"Likewise." Adama gritted.

"One…" Edric started.

"Two…" Adama seconded.

"Three!" Both men shoved the women away from them and caught the one stumbling towards them in an almost perfect mirror image of each other. Both Adama's slung the shocked women behind their backs and faced off against each other with matching glowers. When seen together like that, the familial resemblance was really quite glaring.

The racket of several safeties being flipped off, clipped through the hanger as the entirety of both the Presidential and Admiral's security forces took aim at the two incomers in their gunky silver flight suits standing in the shadow of the battered wrong shaped flyer.

"Major, what in the name of Hades are you doing?" Colton used one of Edric's shoulders to hold onto and keep from becoming more closely acquainted with the deck.

"Saving your ass." Edric gritted. "Again."

"My arse, toned as it is, is none of your business." Colton snapped and stepped around him without pause, at least six guns tracked her every move. She looked about herself, apparently able to see quite proficiently. She unzipped her flight suit and stripped it back to her waist, tying the sleeves around her slim hips to hold it there. "Look around you, Major, we're on a Battlestar, that's an Admiral and he's wearing a Caprican insignia. Betty did it, we're home."

"That's not, technically true." Roslin poked her head around Adama's shoulder and was firmly pushed back for her efforts. She shot a glance at the back of his head but resolved herself to craning around as much as she could to see the other woman. "You're on board the _Galactica, _but we're nowhere near Caprica and…the first Cylon war is long since over."

"Where are we then?" Edric still hadn't lowered his gun. He was ignoring the whole security force, deeming them not worthy of his time, and had his sights set squarely between Adama's eyes. He still couldn't see all that well, but he could make out enough to get a clean headshot in.

"Shush, honey, adults talking." Colton petted his outstretched arm and took a few steps closer to Adama and Roslin, effectively blocking Edric's shot. He glared, exasperated, at the back of her skull. "'First Cylon War'? There's been more than one?"

"Yeah, welcome to the end of the world, folks." Adama growled and Roslin did her best to try and skirt around him again. The vice like grip on her wrist kept her from getting out of arm's reach though.

"Wait, what?" Colton demanded, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Care to explain that last in more than grunts?" She turned away and slapped at Edric's hand when he tried to pull her back. "Gawd! Military men!" She huffed at him. "Can't you see I'm trying to have a conversation? And put that thing away, you're going to have someone's eye out." She flicked the gun away from her with a bat of her hand and earned an incredulous look from just about everybody. "They're more afraid of us than we are of them. Like spiders, mice and other small animals." She explained slowly, as if to a child and turned back to Roslin and the other Adama with an orbital eye roll. Roslin didn't know how much she liked being compared to a small animal.

"Sorry about that, he's a little twitchy about strangers. Give him a biscuit, let him sniff yer hand and he'll be fine."

Roslin snorted in amusement and promptly wiped the expression from her face when Adama glared at her.

"Now, I do believe we got off on the wrong foot with the hostage taking there." Colton smiled congenially, her Northern Geminon brogue matching her green eyes and dark hair almost to stereotypical proportions. "I'm Dana Colton, certified genius and this," she turned to Edric with a look of long suffering disdain, "is Major Edric Adama. Commonly known as the hired help."

"I should have let you suffocate." Edric snapped, finally holstering his weapon and glaring at his companion.

"I should have let you stay a gimp, steampunk." She shot straight back, folding her arms over her chest and kicking her head back at him with attitude. She looked back at Roslin, Adama and the assembled throng and arched an expectant brow. "Traditionally, introductions go both ways, but I can understand if manners somewhat escaped you, being Caprican and all." Her smile was a little like a shark's.

"Laura Roslin." Roslin stepped away from Adama and yanked her hand from his grip in order to extend it towards Colton. "President of the Twelve Colonies."

Colton's brows flew up.

"Shayzus bloody Hades, a woman President. Who had to die for you to get that job?" Colton shook her hand and Roslin hid her wince with a strained smile.

"About ninety nine percent of humanity and forty six members of the cabinet." She answered bluntly, she had the feeling that Colton would want nothing less. The other woman was clearly caught off guard for a moment, her fingers white knuckling around Roslin's. An instant of something stark and hollow passed over her face before she cleared her throat and shrugged.

"Ah well, no big loss. I always did hate politicians and ninety nine per cent of people are not worth my time of day anyway." She reached behind her back and removed several files from where they had been tucked down the back of her tank top. "Hold these, darling, make yourself useful instead of glowering at folk." She thrust them into Adama's hands and planted her own on her hips.

"So, before we get carted off to the medical bay and inevitably the brig, can we stop by the showers because I've been at least sixty years without one and, quite frankly, can't stand his smell any longer." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the perpetually frowning Edric.

Adama nodded and two of the President's bodyguards stepped forward and gingerly clasped Colton's arms. She smiled up at them and looped her arms through theirs like they were escorting her out for an evening. Another two men cautiously approached Edric and carefully disarmed him, a process which took several moments considering how many dangerous objects he had secreted about his personage. He did snarl at them when they tried to take his arms though.

"Don't pay any attention to him, darlings, he's just grumpy because he's not eaten in a few decades. Give him some chow and he'll be fine. In fact, make that a double." Colton turned back to look up at her guard conversationally. "I'm absolutely starving!" She turned to the other. "Oh, and I'm dying for a decent cup of coffee. You don't know where I could get one do you?"

Roslin and Adama watched the odd pair, misplaced in time and, apparently, personality, pass them by, shared a look out of the corner of their eyes, shrugged in unison and followed after them.

**$inister $cribe**

So, it was several showers (for both Adama's and two gunk covered women), a half gallon of coffee, an improbable quantity of food and a change of wardrobe later that they found themselves in the Medical Bay with Doc Cottle staring at his latest patients with something akin to terrified awe as he drew blood from Edric's massive vein roped arm. That would be the arm that wasn't mechanical from the bicep down.

Roslin looked over Edric, clad in a set of sweats and the standard issue military tanks (current ones rather than retro) and tried not to gawk like a slack-jawed yokel too much.

He was tall, well over six feet, nearly half that at his broad muscle packed shoulders, bronzed skin, silvered by the scar that ran down over one eye and cheek and with inky black hair that was cropped close to his skull. His face was not typically handsome, but rather a rugged kind of beauty to it. His metal arm was attached by a thick cuff to his bicep and it whirred and clicked quietly with every fluid motion that he put it through. It was made of a mostly chrome coloured metal but decorated with plating of an etched bronze alloy. The artistry in it was quite impressive.

He was large, intimidating and, overall, not impressed with the current time he found himself in. When it had become clear that he and the current Admiral were indeed related he had subjected Bill to a piercing mismatched glare for several long seconds (a glare that Bill had met and held, it should be added) and declared him shorter than he had expected.

At that point, it had taken all of Roslin's diplomatic negotiating skills to make sure the current Adama didn't airlock his ancestor at the soonest opportunity. She still wasn't entirely convinced that she had succeeded, but Edric was still with them so she supposed that was something.

Doctor Colton, however was his opposite. She appeared friendly, chatty and utterly comfortable with the situation she found herself in. When she had found out that Cylons could take on the human form (one of the topics of several conversations that she appeared able to carry on at once) her eyes had lit with something that had been both fear and some kind of manic interest.

She sat, cross-legged on one of the gurneys in the infirmary, reaching behind her back to lace her fingers together before bending forward and lifting her arms as high as she could behind her back. Roslin winced at the popping crack of bones but Colton didn't even blink. She was an odd looking woman. Long and lean, one would have even have said she was willowy had it not been for her slim but definitely there curves. She tied her dark hair back into a messy knot secured with two thermometers that she had 'borrowed' from Cottle and gestured effusively with her thin arms and long fingered hands. When she wasn't trying to dislocate them at the shoulder, that was.

"So these…skin-jobs?" Roslin nodded at the slang term at Colton's question, query number one million and sixty four, if Roslin's guess was right. Skin-jobs was one of the more polite ones she had heard, so they were going to stick with that one. "Can completely mimic the human form, there are twelve models, you've seen seven and the other five are still a mystery?"

"Yes."

Adama grunted from where he stood with his arms folded, between Roslin and Edric, a position he had been careful to keep up for the entirety of the afternoon. He wasn't impressed with sharing information, but it was common knowledge, they'd probably hear at least that much in the Brig, which was where both Colton and Edric would be held for the time being after medical checks were completed.

"And there's no way for you to tell them apart? They even bleed? Mimic human emotion?"

"That's right."

"Huh." Colton nodded to herself. Roslin could almost see the wheels of that obviously powerful mind spinning away behind her eyes.

"Unless you count their day-glo spines during sex." Cottle muttered and Colton whirled on him.

"REALLY?" She ticked her head to the side. "How extra usual…how many hybrids are there?"

Everybody turned to stare at her.

"How did you know…?" Adama stepped towards her, almost menacingly and halted only when Edric shifted his weight and looked like he was about to launch himself at the other man. Apparently, mutual feelings of dislike aside, he was going to follow his orders to protect Colton to the letter.

"Oh puh-LEAZE!" Colton looked between them. "Can we dial the testosterone down a touch? You boys can whip 'em out and measure later but right now I'm trying to be the genius I'm paid to be."

Roslin pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She had to admit that Colton had a certain way about her.

"And hybrids are the next logical step from biblical knowledge of glorified sentient sex dolls." Colton dismissed it. "So?"

"There are none." Roslin answered before anyone else could. Her voice flat. "There was one, but it died. Some kind of cellular degradation."

"Hmm." Colton crossed her legs under her body in a peculiar half kneeling position. She tapped her fingers against her lower lip, frowning slightly and deep in thought. "So they've evolved. We just had the raiders and the chrome centurions…another five faces out there that need finding…" She snapped her fingers and rocked back on her heels with a clap of her hands. "Ceramics!"

"Uh…pottery?" Adama looked sideways at Roslin. He was beginning to suspect that too much time in space had fried the good Doctor Colton's mind.

"No, the skin jobs, they can't be metal, because y'all would have detected it but they could be ceramic instead…made of nanotech…hmmm…" Colton sat forward again and propped her elbow on her knee and her chin on her fist. Her other hand cupped the opposite knee and she drummed her fingers there in a rapid tempo.

"Nanotech?" Roslin queried.

"Tiny machines. Teechie small." Colton held her thumb and forefinger together to indicate something too small to be measured. "Each one about the size of a human red blood cell…but their invention was a secret. There are only two people from the Twelve colonies who survived application."

"Application?" Adama questioned warily.

"Mm-hmm." Colton answered absently, most of her attention still focused inward.

"Colton, shut it."

"You shut it." Colton snapped back at Edric. "In case you hadn't noticed, the human race is somewhat less pandemic than it used to be. Which means that the pool of intellects equal to my own has just shallowed _dramatically_, at the very least, I may never have a decent conversation again. I'm not letting these bloody…SKIN-JOBS wipe out the rest of us and if that means spilling the beans on something your eejit sister and her admiralty cronies deemed classified then it'll just have to be another shitty thing that you live with."

A muscle in Edric's jaw ticked. "Don't talk about my sister."

"She's dead, Eddie. Everyone's dead. Everyone we knew, everyone we loved and loved us in return is nowt but space dust. Blasted to smithereens decades ago. Even their graves are now nothing but irradiated slag on a dying planet in an abandoned system several THOUSAND light years away!" She vented at him and it was Roslin's first clue that she wasn't entirely unbothered by what had happened to her. The situation she now found her in wasn't exactly to her liking and that went a long way to comforting Roslin for some reason.

"They're it. Hades, _we're_ it!" Colton gestured wildly at them and nearly unmanned Cottle when he tried to approach her to take blood. She stopped suddenly and frowned, she turned back to Roslin. "What was I saying?"

"Application of nanotech was only successfully done to two people in the Twelve Colonies." She prompted immediately.

"Aye, that was it." Colton snapped her fingers. "Now, understand, they were designed with the intention of helping people. One of the subjects suffered from a rare type of bone cancer, terminal, it was going to kill her slowly and in an agonising fashion…the other had been crippled in an accident. The nanotech was grafted into their bodies, into their bone marrow, along with ten other volunteers in similar situations, one from each Colony. The project was highly classified, a mere handful of people knew about it and most of them are dead now."

"Enough!" Edric shot to his feet and moved to Colton's bed as if to physically restrain her from speaking. He didn't take a step before Adama moved between them and met Edric's gaze glare for glare.

"Sit your ass back down or it won't just be an arm that's made of spare parts."

Edric glared and seethed for a moment before falling back and throwing himself roughly onto the bed with a low snarl.

Adama turned back to Colton. "You were saying?"

"Uh…aye. If what happened is what I think what happened, and it probably is because I have a nasty habit of being right…then these twelve were the first Cylon skin-jobs, at least, partially so. I think, it's logical to assume that the Cylons somehow got a hold of this technology and…used it to evolve."

"Good Gods…" Roslin breathed and turned to Adama. "Is our past EVER going to stop coming back to bite us in the ass?"

"Probably not." Cottle answered for the room at large and lit a cigarette.

"You said that only two survived. Why was that?"

"The grafting process was extremely violent and dangerous. It involves the complete eradication of the hosts immune system so the nanotech can take over the job without being rejected. If you imagine the nastiest type of chemotherapy and multiply that by your worst nightmare then you're kind of in the ballpark…actually, two out of twelve was a lot better than the predicted survival rate." Colton shrugged.

"Frak." Cottle said, again, the voice of the room. "Right, hold still so I can draw a sample."

"Sure." Colton held out her arm without looking and turned at Roslin's next question.

"So, these forefathers of the Cylon incursion, who were they?"

"I should warn you, doc. You're gonna find a lot of weird shit in there." Colton was looking down at the thick dark blood being drawn from her vein and into the syringe. Cottle grunted. "Don't worry, I'll use small words to explain when you have your questions."

"Colton!" Adama demanded. She snapped around to look at him and nearly succeeded in lancing the syringe clean through her arm with the jerk of motion. "Who were they?"

"Oh, isn't it obvious?" She glanced between the two monarchs of the remnants of humanity.

"You're looking at them."


	3. Chapter 3

**Nothing really to say except for thanks for the reviews aaaannnd….keep em coming. **

**Chapter 3: Frak, Frakkity, Frak, Frak, FRAK!**

"Hey, watch the jacket!"

Colton bounced into her cell in the brig and turned around to glare at the two burly henchmen that had just hurled her into it. They turned away from her without a word and marched away.

"What?" She yelled after them. "All that and you're not even gonnae frisk me?!"

"Colton…shut UP." Edric looped his arms through the bars of the cell opposite and looked at her with a long suffering expression on his face. "Like you could have expected any better."

"Hey, better they find out now. Coddle, Codfish…"

"Cottle."

"COTTLE then!" She dismissed it with an expansive wave of her hand. "He was taking blood and even a cancer-stick sucking sawbones like him would be able to figure out that the status just ain't quite quo with our haem juice."

"You're just weird and you wondered why nobody spoke to you on the _Cerberus."_

"No I didn't. I knew perfectly well why they didn't speak to me. The men didn't speak to me because they liked my breasts too much and were afraid of my mind and the women didn't like speak to me because they didn't like my breasts and their heads were a lot emptier than mine."

"You really are in love with yourself. I thought it was just a summer thing." Edric smeared a hand over his face tiredly. "We're never going to get out of here now."

"Sure we are. Eventually one of us should learn to pick a lock or use our feminine wiles to get out of here."

Edric arched a brow at her and Colton propped her chin on her fist, her elbow on the bars of her cell and smiled at him like a china doll.

"Oh, I was referring to you, sweet-cheeks. Better start waxing those shapely legs of yours."

"You're insane."

"Same's been said about you, and a lot more frequently, I can tell you."

At his glower she sought to cheer him a little.

"Hey, don't worry, sooner or later our expertise will be required. There's always uses for a genius and a flyboy in a war. Necessity will always outstrip caution when it comes to the continuation of human life."

"You really are a cold bitch, you know that?" Edric glowered at her.

Colton shrugged one shoulder and pulled the cigarettes and lighter she had filched from Cottle's lab coat pocket. She perched one of the hand rolled ciggies between her full lips and cupped her hand when she lit it. She inhaled deeply and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.

"Only way to travel." She answered absently and looked right into the single eye of the security camera right over their heads.

**$inister $cribe**

"Well," Adama noted, "she's an unsettling one." They were in the observation room that the security camera footage was fed into. It was just the two of them, Saul was on his way, Roslin had sent Tory to go fetch him. Not that Saul needed a Presidential aide to escort him, but Tory was being particularly irritating after the whole 'held at knifepoint' incident and Laura had just wanted five minutes of peace.

"But apparently quite well informed." Roslin countered. "What do you think?"

"Is she lying?" Adama looked over at the President and tilted his jaw as he thought about it. "It's possible but…unlikely I think. Even if they are Cylons, why choose this identity to assume?"

"One of them is supposed to be related to you. Leverage?"

"Can't say that I'm feeling the nepotism." Adama said in a low growl. Roslin tilted her head at him. "I don't appreciate my Commander In Chief being taken hostage." He defended himself and leant a little closer to her. "How's the neck?" His fingers tilted her jaw back and Laura went completely still. Her tongue traced her lips nervously and she swallowed hard. She hadn't been ready for that. Usually she was given a little more warning to prepare herself when he was about to touch her. She couldn't deny that it felt nice though.

"Fine, just stings a little."

"Hmm." More a growl than anything else. "Boy's lucky I didn't have him shot." He leant even closer to inspect the small cut on her throat and they were unexpectedly close when she tilted her chin back down to meet his eyes.

"That 'boy' is nearly three times your age." She pointed out. "If their story is the truth."

"We'll get the DNA test back soon enough." Adama didn't move back and neither did she.

"What are you going to do if it's positive?"

"Me?"

"Well, he is your relative and this is your ship." Roslin smiled at him and he was struck with a sudden urge to put his hands on her again. See, this was why they shouldn't touch. It just gave mutinous parts of his anatomy ideas.

"That's never stopped you taking charge before." He pointed with a smile of his own. Roslin in charge was an intriguing prospect, but Roslin under his charge was even more interesting.

"In the interests of a continuing friendship, I'm not going to answer that."

He grinned, an expression stunning in its rarity. "How diplomatic of you, Madam President."

"It's in the job description." She said dryly.

"Yeah, the job." He muttered. Sometimes he hated the job. He saw an answering flash of emotion in her eyes and only forced himself to draw away and put some much needed professional distance between them when the hatch opened behind them announcing the arrival of Saul and Tory.

"More Cylons?" Saul demanded from behind his eye patch. "Won't these frakkers quit getting new faces?" Saul leaned between the President and the Admiral, forcing them further apart and peered at the security monitor set up for the camera feed. "Though he does look a bit like you, Old Man."

"He's nothing like me." Adama stated coldly and Saul arched the brow over his empty eye.

"Clearly." Was all he said before turning to glance at Roslin. "He managed to grab hold of you, Madam President?"

Roslin blinked, sometimes she thought she'd never get used to Saul's utter lack of charm, subtlety or anything remotely close to respect for her.

"Only for a short time."

"Definitely nothing like you." Saul agreed with Adama with something very close to sarcasm in his tone and ignored the Admiral's scowl and the President's look of confusion.

"The male claims himself to be Edric Adama, the same Major that went missing during the first Cylon Conflict and the female is supposedly Doctor Dana Colton, one of the most successful Biomechanical Engineers of her time. She was supposed to have something like five doctorates in various fields of expertise." Tory read from the history sheets she had cobbled hastily together. "Each of their records includes a DNA analysis, I had the sheets sent along to Doctor Cottle for confirmation with his blood analysis."

"Thank you, Tory." Roslin nodded to her assistant, who seemed to be doing marginally better this week. Her hair looked less like it had been styled in an activated airlock at least. Tory gave a jerky nod and stepped back to blend with the furniture so the 'adults' could talk. Roslin turned back to the two military men.

"We have to at least consider the possibility that they're telling the truth. That they are who they claim to be."

"Why, not let them rot in the brig?" Saul grumbled in his usual fashion and the President shot him an annoyed look before tamping it down and explaining with exaggerated care.

"Well, from what I've read, the _Betty_ was a revolutionary stealth fighter that Cylon raiders couldn't track never mind aim at. Edric Adama was supposedly the only man that could fly her." Roslin canted a hip against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. "On the other hand, Doctor Colton was one of the greatest minds of her time. Her father was the man that dreamed up the first Cylons and built them too. If her reputation is correct then she's already forgotten more about Cylons than we could ever hope to learn. If they really are allies then we can't afford to let a resource like that go to waste."

"They could also be sleeper agents, like Sharon was or like Bulldog. They could have gotten inside their heads and pulled all manner of frakked up stuff on them." Saul pointed out, determined to suck all the hope out of the room at any given opportunity.

"I want scenarios for both options." Adama said and glanced at Roslin. "Agreed?"

"Sounds prudent to me." She nodded.

"Sounds far too kind." Saul muttered. "I say airlock them and be done with it. If they're Cylon sleepers then they won't be any danger to us and if they're who they say they are then we're no worse off. Can't lose something we never had."

Roslin stared at him for a long moment, giving him her full powered over-the-glasses glare until even Saul shifted uncomfortably.

"I think you'll find that it would matter to them. Humanity is hanging on by a thread, I'm not throwing anymore of them to the wolves unless it's a last resort." She said carefully, sometimes the man really chewed on her last nerve.

"Let's keep them confined to the brig for the moment. If the blood tests come back negative, they stay there under armed guard, if the blood confirms their story we'll move them to guest quarters but under restricted movement for the time being."

"Double up the guard on Doctor Colton." Roslin said suddenly, gazing at the small image of Colton prowling back and forth in her cell like a caged wolf. "If we're going to have any trouble, it will be from her."

"What makes you say that?" Saul demanded of her.

"Edric's a military man. Everything he has done up until this point has simply been following orders. He even deferred to you when you told him to sit down." She nodded to Adama. "Colton's not like that. She doesn't believe in an authority higher than her own. We'll have to watch her."

Adama stood for a moment and mulled it over. The President had already given him free rein to deal with this as he saw fit. He finally gave a sharp nod.

"Agreed."

"Good, now that's settled I have a Quorom meeting to attend that's been delayed long enough." Roslin flicked her wrist to glance at her watch. "Keep me informed?" She glanced at the Admiral.

"Yes, Madame President."

With one last smile at him, Roslin and Tory left through the hatch they had come in. Both Saul and Adama watched them go. Adama knew his XO was gearing up to say something less than pleasant and waited for it.

"Is it true you picked her up and shoved her behind you. Shielding her from the frakking guy with the gun?"

Bill only glared at him and Saul chuckled darkly.

"I believe that falls under the category of going above and beyond."

**$inister $cribe**

Roslin sat at her chair in the longest Quorum meeting in the history of humanity and tried not to show how uncomfortable she was feeling. Her chest was tight, it was far too hot in this stuffy room and she had a disgusting metallic taste in her mouth that reminded her uncomfortably of coppery blood and no amount of water sipping was going to rinse it away. Tory kept glancing at her, sensing something was up. Roslin hid it well, she couldn't stand it when people fussed over her, and Tory was worse than a broody mother hen.

She did hope this meeting would end soon though.

It was probably something to do with her latest course of cancer treatments. Talk about the cure being as bad as the cause. Every time she lay down on that bed in the medical bay she was hooked up to that frakking drip and felt sick to her stomach with the roiling nausea and vicious cramps. Roslin's hand tightened on her pen. Her vision wavered slightly but she dug her nails into her leg under the table and managed to spur herself back to somewhere near lucid again.

Finally, finally FINALLY they wrapped up.

Roslin made all the right noises and made it to her feet with barely a wobble. She shook hands and smiled in all the right places. Saying something, she didn't know what, she didn't care, she just wanted to retreat back to Colonial One, curl up in her cot and maybe die for a little while.

Until her next meeting at least.

But then the world tilted and her vision tunnelled down to a pinpoint. She heard shouting as if through water and had the vague sensation of the floor rushing up and battering one side of her body and face. She winced and moaned in pain but couldn't manage any more than that. She flopped onto her back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling until Tory's face appeared floating above her.

Oh Gods, this was it. The end. She hadn't thought it would come this quickly. She had known she was dying. Accepted it in some academic cool fashion, but her heart had refused to let go of that one tiny hope that had been born on New Caprica. Of seeing Earth, of building a cabin by a pool of water clear as glass. Of Bill helping her to build it and maybe, just maybe, retiring from the job long enough to stay for a while.

Bill.

Roslin tried to open her mouth, trying to speak, trying to tell Tory. Go and get Bill. Roslin wanted to see him, one last time. Just once more before she took the long lonely walk away from him and everyone she cared about in this life. Her hand clasped Tory's arm and she tried desperately to speak. Her throat and tongue couldn't utter a sound but her eyes refused to stop screaming.

Roslin had the impression of Tory looking up, barking orders and enforcing order amongst the riotous chaos that the Quorom had descended into. She was Aide Extraordinaire and Gods help anyone that didn't heed her words. She saw the Tauran delegate throw open the hatch and bellow into the corridor, then everything whited out and she slipped into a cold kind of peace.

**$inister $cribe**

Adama stood at the strategy table and looked over the tiny representations of the fleet inching their way across the glowing grid. He braced one fist against the table and tried to will the nausea away by the fierceness of his determination alone. A bitter metallic taste plagued his mouth and his vision was hazy at best. The sounds of the CIC bubbled around him as if heard from far away and lulling him nearer and nearer to the inky black of a deep sleep. He felt tired to his bones, but then, he pretty much always felt tired these days. Trying to keep an entire race alive on a rag tag fleet of poorly outfitted and under supplied ships was not an easy job and he couldn't _afford_ to be feeling like crap.

Adama sucked in a breath, lifted his coffee and sipped cautiously. He already felt like he wanted to be sick so badly that if he ever was he might just turn completely inside out. At that charming image his stomach did a back flip and he ordered it to stand to attention and get under regulation control. It managed a quivering slump and he decided to take what he could get. The coffee burned all the way down and felt like acid to his innards.

"How you doing, Old Man?" Saul appeared at his side and Adama tried to ignore the way his brain sloshed in his skull when he turned to see his oldest friend. He opened his mouth to tell the other man to pick up the scale model of _Colonial One _and just beat him over the head with it and put him out of his misery, when a barked word from Dee put all that on hold.

"Contact!"

The change in the CIC and everyone in it was instantaneous. Training and experience snapped their spines straight and heightened reflexes like they had been idling on battery power before and had now been hooked up to the mains. Adama's coffee clunked to the table, half missed and clattered to the floor forgotten. Reports came from every machine, consoles lit up across the board and alarms sounded throughout the ship. It all tumbled and churned like a well oiled machine and Adama couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride even as his stomach quailed under the adrenaline flooding his system.

"Scramble Vipers." Saul barked and Adama looked up at DRADIS, counting the raiders streaming in. so far only one battalion of them, no basestars as of yet. Which was the way he was hoping to keep it.

Adama marched himself to the centre of the CIC and eyed nearly everyone in the room despite the black spots hovering in his vision.

"Scramble fighters. Order the fleet to spool up their FTLs and jump as soon as, then get the frak out of here after them. Quick and clean people." With that final order, Adama crumpled in on himself and slumped to the floor of the CIC.


	4. Chapter 4

**This one's for Yahtzie, who yelled at me to update and who shares the same favourite episode as me. **

**My favourite line from that episode (aside from the obvious in the last two minutes) is:**

**'Well, if you're my subconscious, I've got to say that you're a little full of myself.'**

**It should also be pointed out that THIS story is only vaguely A/R, the next one has some Rodama action in it, but most of it's hinted at and doesn't get really interesting until near the end and then the story after THAT, there's some hot 'n' steamy for all concerned. **

**Yowza. **

**Now, on with the show.**

**Chapter 4: Told You So**

"You two, with me!"

A man with an eye-patch that Edric had never seen before yanked open the hatch to the brig, pointed at them both like he'd rather shoot them and ordered the Marines to descend upon them. The doors to their cells were thrown open, both he and Colton had manacles slammed onto their wrists, had been bodily hauled out of their confining cages and into the main corridors of the_ Galactica_ before they knew what was happening to them.

They were surrounded by the guards and buffeted down the corridors between various guns, all pointed at them. Edric bristled when one of the guys manhandled Colton a little too roughly, and his steely glare was more than enough to have the guy stepping firmly away from her. The battlestar heaved and bucked around them. The sound of heavy artillery impacts muffled and thrumming through the hulls.

"Just like old times, eh, Eddie?"

"Don't call me that." He gritted at her, under no illusions that this would ever make her stop. "And this isn't the time for your warped sense of humour."

"Well, doesn't look like you'll be growing one any time soon so I thought I'd be the comic relief in such dire straights."

"Stifle that woman before I do it." Eye-patch barked and Edric snarled at the Marine that moved in on Colton.

"You. Touch her and you'll need an enema to see that gun again." He turned on Colton. "You. Shut up."

"Never." Colton danced around him, slipped like an oddly dressed eel between two marines and stopped in front of Eye-patch with what she hoped was a charming smile pasted over her face. "Arr, matey." She grinned at him and refused to back down when his scowl only deepened. "Now, now, Captain Ahab, I know a way to turn that frown upside down." She held up one finger and took a huge step backwards when he motioned for the marines to grab hold of her. "I need one minute of your time."

"Thirty seconds. There's a war on."

"Exactly. You need all the help you can get which is why the other Adama sent you down here to grab us Cylon sweet-cakes." She was speaking VERY quickly. "Now this ship is taking a helluva beating, judging by hull vibrations and impact sounds, and you need flyboy over there to get his nice shiny ship out there and go and kick some Cylon arse, right? Don't answer it'll take too long. You want me because I know more about these toaster frakwits than anyone else alive and you're thinking that maybe I know something important like, say, a frequency that can scramble the Raiders' systems long enough for y'all to haul ass back inside and jump away nice and safe." Her chest heaved as she sucked in a breath. "That was twenty nine seconds by the by."

"What do you want?" Was Eye-patch's immediate response. Oh, she liked him, none of this pussy-footing around. Right down to bid-ness.

"Out of these cuffs." She held her hands up in illustration.

A sharp nod. "Done." He rattled keys from his pocket and slid them into the locks on the cuffs then he gripped her wrist tight enough to make her suck in a harsh breath. "If you step one _toe_ out of line, I'll airlock you myself."

"I would expect no less from a scurvy knave such as you." She saluted him and was once more surrounded by marines as Edric's manacles were released as well. The ship continued to heave under them. Was it her or was it getting worse? Gods, she hated space.

"You know of a frequency to frak up the Cylons?"

"Well, the way I see it, I've got about five minutes to learn one." Edric stared at her and she shrugged with that childish grin of hers. Excited at the next puzzle given to her.

"And after five minutes?"

She tilted her head and shrugged one shoulder. "Won't matter after that." He arched a brow at her. "Eddie, haven't you figured it out? If I don't fix the frakked up mess for all these idiots, we'll all be dead in five minutes. Happy hunting, darling." She reached up and cupped one side of his face, yanking him down and pressing a deliberately sloppy kiss to the opposite cheek and then waving to him jauntily as they parted ways at the next fork in the corridor.

Edric could only shake his head at her antics, hope she was wrong about the five minute deadline (bad choice of words) and quicken his pace down towards the hanger deck.

$inister $cribe

Saul ducked though the hatch and into the CIC a half step behind Doctor Colton and watched a fierce change come over the woman. Her spine straightened, her chin took on a hard edge and her eyes became flint. She barked orders like she was born to it and had the officers scattered in the alarm swamped room jumping to fulfil her needs like she was the Old Man wearing a different face. He had to admit, not that he would ever say it out loud, that he was impressed. He'd read the docket on her too, and if half of the stuff on that sheet was true, she could very well be a very good thing for them and a horrific thing for the Cylons.

"I need the strongest transistor you have and I need the access to the com." When the equipment didn't immediately appear in her hands, she snarled again. "TODAY, people! Baby Bill is nothing like his Grandmama if he lets y'all go this bloody SLOW!" She snapped at the nearest unfortunate crewman. The transistor was shoved into her hands. "I need spare wire, pliers, a sonic screwdriver and gum."

Dee had hauled out a tool box and was yanking things from its jumbled depths and transferring them into Colton's hands as she ripped off the side of the transistor and revealed the wired innards, she grabbed fistfuls and yanked them out into the flashing light so she could see what was going on.

"SOMEBODY TURN THOSE DAMN ALARMS OFF I CAN'T TELL WHAT COLOURS ARE WHAT OTHERWISE!" She bellowed over the wailing sounds of the CIC in full battle mode and all was immediately made quiet. "Thank you." She sang softly and snapped her fingers at Dee. "Gum. Where's the gum?" When Dee just looked at her Colton heaved a long suffering sigh and looked out over the CIC at large. "You mean to tell me that nobody on this Cylon infested ship chews GUM!?"

"I have some, ma'am." A crewman shuffled forward and held out a packet to her.

"Don't call me ma'am unless we're in too deep, boy." She snatched it from his hand, ripped out several pieces and shoved them into a shocked Dee's mouth. "Chew please." She went back to ripping at the transistor, yanking off panelling on the com system and twisting stripped wiring together. Dee stared at her a second and then began to hurriedly chew when Colton looked as if she was about to manually assist.

"This doesn't count?" Saul asked, keeping his good eye fixed on DRADIS, what the hell was going on out there? Not that he wasn't pleased, but Raiders were dropping like flies out there for no apparent reason and that was a little more disconcerting that he liked to admit. He kept the majority of his attention focused on what was going on outside rather than what was going on right in front of him, but he still monitored Colton with half an ear. The President's warning about Colton ringing in his ears.

"Trust me, when we're in too deep, I'll let you know." Colton muttered yanking out a knot of spliced wires, reaching into Dee's surprised mouth and extracting the sticky gum. She barely blinked but nearly everyone else in the CIC, including Dee, grimaced at the very thought of what she'd just done. "Hey, count yourself lucky I didn't reach in for a stool sample." Colton shoved the wires back in, jammed the transistor up against the com console and slammed the panel shut so it was wedged against the machinery. She flicked the power switch and looked at it expectantly.

Nothing happened.

"Shit."

"If you've lied to me…" Saul began.

"Aye, aye, you'll make me walk the plank. Whatever, Ahab." Colton waved him away with a dismissive hand and thought a moment. "I know!" She dived for the tool box, yanked out a mallet, and battered the side of the transistor. It coughed once then thrummed to life. "Yes! Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the gruel." Colton surged to her feet and the marines closed on her again to escort her from the room.

"Ah, ah, ah!" She waggled an admonishing finger at them and then threw the mallet at one of them to catch. "Please, gentleman, allow me my grand finale."

A nod from Saul had them backing off.

"Alrighty then, boys and girls. Here we are. Balls to the wall and say goodbye to your ability to hear." Colton reached over Dee's head and gripped the huge lever that powered up the com console. Because it was such a large system, it required a _lot_ of juice.

"What?" Saul demanded. Anything requiring his personal pieces being nailed to a bulkhead was decidedly a not good idea in his mind.

"I might have not mentioned that this was still in its test stages."

"How many tests have been done?"

"Including this one?" Colton raised her eyes to the ceiling and counted silently on the fingers of one hand. "One."

"What the frakking hell- -!"

"Now, now, Davey Jones, people will think you don't like me." Colton waved off his menacing advance.

"You don't even know if this works?!"

"Well, it'll either scramble the raiders or…"

"OR!?" Saul bellowed at her.

"Cause our brains to explode. One of the two. Earplugs in everyone!" Colton announced with a cheery smile and flipped the lever down with a piercing shriek of sound and an explosion of sparks.

$inister $cribe

The _Betty _screamed out of the hanger and into the silent black of space. Even with her tarnished hull, she blended into the constant night of the universe and twisted, spinning in a whirling barrel roll that had Edric grinning. Damn, decades of being locked in a sleep he had been aware of somewhere in the back of his mind and he was finally back where he belonged. In his cockpit, with Betty, and ready to kick some Cylon ass.

"Well, Miss Boop, what say you we send some of these toasters back to the manufacturer due to unforeseen faults?"

"Sounds like a plan, Edric." Betty answered smoothly in her odd non-voice.

"Alright then." Edric flexed his gloved hands in the flight gauntlets and leant forward. He listened as Betty's limbs extended to her hyper sleek position, wings stretched out in front of her and her legs tucked up behind her. Her cannons hung loose under her belly like the waiting talons of a predatory bird and she was just looking for a tasty Cylon snack to cut her teeth on.

"That one." Betty murmured. "There." Edric turned, knowing which one she meant despite her distinct lack of ability to point.

"Good choice." Edric murmured and twisted his body. Betty spiralled in the air to mimic his movement and they sliced downwards through the vacuum impossibly fast. They swooped down and smashed into the Cylon raider that had no idea they had been there. The last thing to go through its animal like brain was Betty's outstretched wings as her unbreakable alloy hull sliced cleanly through the raider as if it were tissue paper and left nothing but shrapnel and exploding fuel cells behind it.

"There." Betty said and Edric arched again the wings bucking backwards and aiding Betty and flipping over her own tail and scooting back towards the _Galactica_ as fast as her one of a kind engine could throttle. There was a raider headed for a suicide mission and, well, that was just plain rude as far as Edric was concerned. Betty spun in the air so she was 'right' way up again, snuck up on the raider from behind and promptly landed on its back. The rending of metal on metal squealed over Betty and both the ship and her pilot ignored it. Wings and legs scissored together and caught the raider's wings between their pincer clutches. The raider tried to buck them off but Betty was having none of it. She heaved with Edric's help, and banked away from _Galactica_. Another raider slid into their flight path and Edric smirked as he thought a command and Betty answered. Twin cannons nudged up and over the raider's head and pointed at its fellow that was being chased by a viper at breakneck speed. Muzzle flashes strobe lighted in front of Edric's face as the cannons unleashed hell on the raider's flank. The ship banked sharply, the tracer bullets shredding a wing to garner its attention. It turned to them and seemed to wobble in confusion when it could only see a fellow raider barrelling towards it.

"Let's make him afraid of the dark, Betty."

"With pleasure." She waited right up until the last instant before releasing her limbs from the death grip they had on the raider. It spun crazily, its crushed wings ruining its otherwise smooth flight. It smashed into its brother with spectacular pyrotechnics and Betty soared through the fire like a dolphin leaping out of water.

"What the frak!" A woman's voice snapped in his ear.

"Found the fleet's com." Betty supplied unnecessarily.

"I can hear that." Edric winced at the feminine bellow that assaulted his ears.

"Apollo, you see that? What the frak was it? Another raider?"

"Looked black, Starbuck. Dunno, raiders don't come in black as far as I'm aware."

"Damn straight they don't." Edric spoke back to the two viper pilots. "Betty ain't no raider."

"Who the frak is this?!" Starbuck, the woman demanded.

"Pleasantries can wait till later, ladies. Right now I've got some cylons I'd like to reduce to spare parts. Care to join me?"

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the com.

"Sounds like my kinda guy, Apollo, what you think?" Starbuck spoke to open com.

"I say we go find some more raiders before all the good ones are taken." Apollo flipped his viper and soared back into the melee, Starbuck wheeled and chased after him and Betty thrummed over their heads, a deadly bloodthirsty shadow that was hungry for more.

_THOOM!!_

Betty whirled to the side as some kind of shockwave rolled over them, Edric grunted and took pains to right his flyer before asking her.

"What in Hades' skull patterned underwear was that?!"

"Good image. It was some kind of sonic signal. Originated from the _Galactica_." Betty supplied helpfully.

"She okay?"

"Fine, but look at the raiders." Edric turned his attention back to the mess of a battle and frowned at what he saw. The winged cylons spun crazily in the vacuum, spinning end over end, crashing into each other and generally cocking up all over the joint. He knew what had happened, knew that Colton had come through on her end of the deal and did the only thing that came naturally and seemed right in the situation.

"Adama, here, everyone on me. Taking charge of the flight. The Cylons are down. Repeat; Cylons are down." Vipers were righting themselves around him, blown off course by the shockwave too. "Don't know how long it's going to last but, Gods damnit, let's make it frakking count."

With a burst of turbo thrusters powering up, Betty lunged forward to full gallop and streaked towards the Cylons, only the tarnish of her tough hide and the rippling of stars that her passing caused allowed the viper pilots to track her movement but they did what they had been trained to do. They followed an Adama into battle, knowing he'd lead them straight back out of it victorious or not at all.

$inister $cribe

"Where is she?!" Saul staggered to his feet, his inner ears wobbly and his balance shot. "I'm gonna kill her!"

"Heh heh heh heh." The husky sound of a coughing chuckle announced her presence under an unbolted chair. The _Galactica _listed oddly to one side where the sound wave had temporarily shut down all her systems and allowed her to drift for a few moments. Colton kicked the chair away and moved so Dee could crawl out from under the com. "Well, that was a hell of a thing." She shook her head as if clearing water from her ears. "Anyone up for another round?" She giggled a little drunkenly and wobbled more than a little when Saul hauled her up off the floor. "Greetings, el capitaine!" She managed an unsteady salute.

"You are going straight back into the brig, you destructive little…"

"Sir!" Dee scrambled back up to her station and pointed up to the DRADIS screen which was just now flickering back to life. "It's working. Raiders are drifting and we're wiping the floor with them."

"Told you so." Colton patted his shoulder and pulled a hand rolled from her pocket, lit it and took a long drag from the business end. She held out the packet to Saul. "Want one?"

Saul glared at her for a long moment, then couldn't help but grin. Girl had balls, that was for sure. He accepted the smoke and then lent in for her to light it.

"I suggest you…" She waved her hand up at the DRADIS screen. "Re-leash the hounds of hell, un-scramble them, whatever it is you do. I don't know how long this will last."

"You heard the lady, bring our birds home and spool up the FTL, time to rejoin the rest of humanity, boys and girls." Saul growled the orders out around his cigarette and turned back to Colton to see her smoking hands-free, arms akimbo and scanning the CIC for something she clearly wasn't seeing.

"What is it?"

"Where's Baby Bill?" She took her cigarette out of her mouth with a flourish and wafted smoke everywhere. Saul's jaw tightened until he felt like it was going to fall off. "What? You look like I just kicked your dog."

"Come with me." Saul headed for the hatch and down towards the medical bay. He caught a passing marine. "You, go find that other one and bring him to the medical bay."

Intrigued now, Colton tripped after him and followed him down the corridor as the marine ran the other way to carry out his mission.

$inister $cribe

Edric was hustled into the medical bay, despite his protests about getting more tests done. He felt fine, honest, but the marines weren't for having it and they lobbed him into the ward anyway.

Edric found it to be a long spacious room that looked like it had been extended to make more room at some point. Gurneys lined both sides and there was hubs of medical supplies at both ends and cabinets locked with various drugs inside, that looked in dangerous short supply as far as he was concerned. The ward was mostly empty, aside from nurses hustling this way and that at apparent breakneck speed. They ran across the ward, apparently walking the twelve or so steps wasn't fast enough.

Now that was worrying.

A scream rent the bubbling sound of the ward. Everyone froze for a flashing instant before training kicked in and they shifted back into work gear from neutral and then hyper speed again. It had been a woman's scream. Edric immediately thought of Colton and his heart ended up somewhere around his trachea. He had a mission, she couldn't die. That would mean he had failed and an Adama did not fail. He shouldered his way through the throng of medics to the bed where the scream had come from and when Edric Adama shouldered people, they either careened off him or were flattened against the nearest bulkhead. He arrived at the bed, ready to berate Colton for whatever stupid stunt she had gone and pulled now and found himself standing with his mouth hanging open over the President of the Twelve Colonies.

"Frak me." He whispered hoarsely.

To say she looked Gods-awful would have been the understatement of the century. She had been strapped down to the bed, evidently to stop her from hurting herself judging by the way she was thrashing around. Her skin was blistered and covered in angry red blotches, her throat swollen and the blood vessels in her eyes had all burst giving her a chilling maddened look. She was obviously in agony. Bone searing, craze inducing pain that never stopped and drilled into you so hard that even your hair hurt.

It all looked chillingly familiar.

Edric lifted his head over to the next bed when a bellow of pain rang through the ward, seven nurses were trying to pin down the Admiral of the fleet so they could put him under restraints. Edric rushed over, picked up two nurses and put them out of his way before planting one hand on Adama's blistered chest and the other on his still free arm. He pinned the older man to the bed and allowed a stunned nurse to tie him down.

Edric stepped back and looked over his apparent descendant.

He had exactly the same symptoms as Roslin.

"No! No way, you can't give them that."

He recognised that northern tone of superiority. Turning, Edric looked over to where Colton had a hold of Cottle's wrist and was twisting slowly until his face grimaced in pain.

"They're in pain." Cottle gasped and Edric strode over and yanked her hand away from Cottle's before she could pulverise the fragile bones in his wrist. She had never been as good as controlling the strength as he had and it was worse when she was pissed off. Which, fortunately for everyone, wasn't very often.

"I'm giving them the morphine."

"Then you better be prepared for the death sentence, doc. I don't know how much has changed in the last few decades, but where I come from, murdering the leaders of humanity tends to be frowned upon." Colton's voice was deadly quiet. Her expression immovable in its neutrality. She was livid. He had only seen her like this once before, when her father had saved her life.

Everyone in the ward went still at her words.

Except for the President and the Admiral. They still screamed in pain.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to say until I'm sure." Colton hedged.

"Oh, come ON, Colton!" Edric whirled her in his arms and gripped her hard by the shoulders. "You know what this is. I know what this is. We've BOTH seen it before."

"Hey, who's the genius here?" She arched a brow at him. There was still some of that chilling anger in her eyes. She was looking for something to rip apart and he had just wedged himself into her sights. "It shouldn't have happened. There's no possible way it could have been transferred."

"Well, you're a scientist," he thrust his arm out to indicate the thrashing patients on the bed. "What's the evidence telling you?"

Colton's jaw hardened to mutinous proportions. Her anger seemed to intensify and roll off her in icy waves.

"Somebody better start talking or I'll have you both air locked." Saul bellowed at them and Colton heaved a sigh.

"It's the nanotech." Colton muttered.

"What?" Cottle looked at her like she'd just said she had three breasts.

"The nanotech." She said louder, turning to face him. "The stuff in our blood, mine and Edric's, that makes us 'special'. Immune to disease, more resilient, better agility, better stamina, reflexes ten times as fast…you name it. We're practically bionic."

"What about it?" Cottle was getting impatient. Two syringes of morphine and years of experience telling him to comfort his patients as best he could. Even if he didn't know what the hell was going on.

Colton raked a hand through her hair and then planted her hands on her slim hips.

"You know how I said that the transference between normal and enhanced was violent? How only two out of twelve survived? Well, we were all turned inside out by it, almost literally, and the first stage, looked exactly like that." Colton pointed at the President and the Admiral.

"You're saying you did this to them?" Saul snarled, advancing towards them. The two marines at the door lifting their weapons and training them on Edric and Colton without orders being issued.

"Not intentionally!" Colton snapped at him. She looked pained for a moment and then worked hard to get the words out in a rush because she didn't plan on saying them again any time soon. "I don't know how it happened."

"Yeah, well, you can sing THAT tune as long as you want in the brig, missy…"

"Hey, there were precautions taken against this. Nanotech replaces the white cell immune system with an offensive organism instead of a defensive one. It's dangerous for that to get a hold of someone else. We coded it into individual DNA, so THIS wouldn't happen." She waved expansively at the agonies on the beds.

"Well, somebody frakked up big time, didn't they?"

"I'd have to agree with you there." Edric put in, folding massive arms over his broad chest.

"Shut up." Colton snapped at him. "It makes no sense."

"Never mind how." Cottle cut in, all this arguing was pointless while his patients were suffering. "Tell me how to fix it."

"You can't."

"What?" Cottle snapped at her. "Your father invented these things didn't he? Tell me how to shut them down."

"You don't understand. It's already too late. The immune system's already been compromised. Even if I could shut the little buggers down, I wouldn't, I'd be sentencing them to death."

"What do you suggest then?"

"Let it run its course. There's a chance, a slim one, that they'll survive."

"As what?" Saul demanded. "Cylon half-breeds?"

"Better than dead." Edric growled and planted himself between Saul and Colton. Saul sensibly backed off.

"Aye, if they survive, they'll be like us, but they'll be alive and very, very, well." Colton said.

"That's it, get them out of here!" Saul waved an arm at them both and the marine's stepped forward.

"Wait!" Cottle barked and the marines paused. Everyone knew that in the med bay, doctor's orders were synonymous with Gods'. Don't piss off the doc because he might be stitching your leg back on some day.

"These two are the only living witnesses of this thing. I need them here. They survived it. They're going to tell me how to get Adama and Laura through it. Got it?" Cottle levelled a glare on the two of them.

They both nodded and watched as Saul and the marines were hustled out of the med bay because they were 'just getting in the way'. Colton and Edric looked at Adama and Roslin twisting on the beds.

"Told you they'd need us eventually." Colton husked hollowly.

"Told you it would blow up in our faces." Edric answered back quietly.

"Aye."

"Yeah."

They looked at each other and then back at the patients, then spoke together at exactly the same time.

"Frak."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Life, Ed, But Not As We Know It**

Edric crossed the med bay and waved a plate of steaming food under Colton's nose.

"You should eat."

"Mm-hmm." She took the plate from him blindly, eyes never leaving the computer screen in front of her and clumsily set it down beside her. Next to the previous two plates of untouched food.

"You know we've got to eat more regularly than most."

"Mm-hmm." Again, she mostly ignored him. "Bring more coffee." She lifted her mug, empty for the fourth time that morning, and waggled it at him.

"Not until you eat."

"Not hungry." Her stomach yowled in protest and she looked down with an expression of mild disgust at her body's treachery.

"Uh-huh. You're not getting more coffee until you eat something." She dragged her eyes away from the screen long enough to shoot him a glare over her glasses. She didn't need the heavy horn-rimmed spectacles, her eyesight was as good as his was, but she said they helped her to think better. She picked up a slice of something off the plate, it was impossible to tell what with the recycled food, and swallowed it pretty much whole. Then she shoved the mug at him again.

"More coffee. Now."

"No." He shoved the mug back at her. "You're going to eat the whole plate, chew it before swallowing, and then you're going to sleep. For a whole three hours."

"Don't need sleep." She countered. He just stared at her. "You could compromise a little."

"You've been up for three days straight, haven't swallowed anything but caffeine gravy and compromise isn't a military matter."

"Then maybe that's what's the matter with the military." She snarked back and caught the smile on his face. "What?" She demanded testily.

"You haven't cracked a joke in three days. I was beginning to think I'd have to be the funny one."

"Gods preserve us." She muttered and sipped from the drink he'd brought her. She grimaced and pulled a face. "Ugh! What the hells is this?"

"Milk." He shrugged. "You need vitamins."

She stared at him like he was a complete idiot and she was strongly considering flinging the milk all over his face. Edric wisely removed the glass from her hands.

"What?" What had he done now to insult her ladyship?

"Are there any COWS on_ Galactica_?!"

Edric tilted his head, not getting the connection. She lent over until she could grip his chin in her hand, she squeezed hard enough to make his bones creak and he scowled at her. They couldn't really hurt each other, being too evenly matched, but they could beat the hell out of each other if they so chose.

"Edric, honey, sweeting, darling, the only things lactating on the _Galactica_ are the rats and other people. _Why_ would you think it would be a good idea to get me milk?"

"You need it. Drink it." His jaw hardened under her grip and she realised suddenly that she was still holding on to him. She released his chin and turned back to her computer.

"Too busy."

Edric rolled his eyes. "You've been busy for three days. You need chow, rest and less coffee."

"They're still sick, I don't need sleep or food and there's no such thing as too much coffee." She lifted the mug and waved it his nose again hopefully. Abruptly finding his temper, Edric batted the mug away so hard that it clunked off a wall, crumpled on impact and bounced over the floor with a tinny clang.

"Hey! I spent ages breaking that one in!" Colton gave an abbreviated yelp as Edric's hand manacled around her arm and hauled her with him when he surged to his feet. She followed him all the way until her toes could only scuff against the floor. Cottle looked up at their domestic, one of many, and decided to stay exactly where he was between Adama and Roslin's beds. Smart man.

"This is how it's going to go. You're either going to do as you're told, sit there like an adult and eat your chow then rest for a bit or I'm going to knock you out, have Cottle feed you through a tube and airlock every can of coffee on this frakking ship. Got it?" His last words were such a low growl that she shivered under his hard gaze, though probably not for the reason he thought.

"Very forceful, Eddie." She gave an exaggerated dreamy smile and clasped her hands under her chin, batting her eyelashes at him. "Go on, say something else."

Edric snorted in disgust and thrust her away from him and back into the chair.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." He shoved the plate at her and nearly succeeded in slopping its contents all over her white lab coat and the deep blue shirt she had scrounged up from somewhere. She wore dark brown pinstripe pants that clung to her long legs and her feet were bare. As was her habit aboard ship. She said it was pointless to wear shoes in an environment where there was nothing she needed them for unless she was getting into a fighter and that was NEVER going to happen.

Well, that made three times she had been wrong since he had known her.

"No beef steak?" His glower had her daintily picking up the unidentifiable slice of whatever and nibbling on it carefully. He knew she rarely ate, too skinny and disconnected from the normal world to remember, and that she hated to be watched while doing so. So he distracted her with something he knew she would sink her teeth into with relish.

"What's bothering you?"

"Aside from the death penalty hanging over our heads if they kick it?" She jerked her chin at Adama and Roslin on the beds. They were bloated and swollen. Their entire bodies one big allergic reaction. Their skins had formed into one giant blister and they were in permanent agony. Only exhaustion and a coma self induced through survival instinct had silenced their screams. It was made worse by the fact Cottle couldn't really do anything for them save the most basic of medical treatments. Saline drips and cold compresses. Colton had even forbidden him from drying to drain some of the fluid build up under their skins. They had to leave them to it. Let them work it out themselves.

It was driving everyone mental.

Colton most of all.

She looked awful. Her skin was waxy pale, her hair dishevelled and had lost its sheen. Her bones stood out. Her muscles, which had been hidden to wiry proportions when she was well fed, stood out in sharp relief so that veins roped them and individual fibres could be discerned. She looked feral and ready to snap. The gravy thick coffee she had been pouring down her throat with impunity hadn't helped either. It was the one thing that the nanotech turning their blood to sludge couldn't really handle.

She was right, they were far more resilient than any normal human would be and no amount of physical exertion would bring one of them to this state in such a short space of time. It would have taken weeks for Edric to deteriorate so much.

Emotion could though. Stress and guilt being the most common to bring out this reaction in her. Edric folded one foot onto the opposite knee and regarded her carefully.

"You're not afraid of death. You haven't been since you were twelve."

Colton did her best to ignore him, sipped cautiously at her 'milk' and tried not to think about where it had come from too much.

"Too smart for that."

She gave a wry smile. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

"So what's troubling your brain then? Why can't you get this?"

Colton chewed thoughtfully and he knew she was trying to break down her answer into something he could understand. It wasn't arrogance on her part (mostly) but there were things she knew about that would forever be beyond him and they were both smart enough to know that.

"Your brain is like…oil poured in an engine." She licked her lips and picked up something else to eat. She'd already moved onto the second plate of food at her side. Now that she had started to eat, she was ravenous.

"It's chugging along, minding it's own business, and then you begin to think of something, really concentrate on it and the oil slops onto the top of the engine. It trickles down through the cogs and wheels, oiling everything up, making it all slick and slidy and everything begins to work better. The engine throttles higher, moves up a gear and you go faster and faster and faster…" She finished her milk with barely a grimace this time, distracted enough not to think about it.

"My brain, is like a beehive and all of the little bees, thousands and thousands of them, have brains like yours." She shrugged. "No queen bee. Too much going on and not enough focus. I've been like this since we woke up. There's no harmony."

For the fist time since he had known her, Edric saw that she was afraid. He knew that her father had gone mad. His brain too highly powered and constantly thinking to ever shut down. Eventually it had killed him.

"I'm missing something. I know I am." She sat back in her seat with a growled sigh from between clenched teeth. "I know it's simple. Obvious…but it's just…" She reached out with her fingers out stretched like she could catch it as a tangible thing. Her hand fisted and she shook her head sharply. "Can't quite grab it yet though."

"Is there something specific you don't understand?"

"It's happening too slowly."

"What? It's been three days."

"I know that, but if you'll think back, it only took us two."

Edric sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. He mulled that over for a moment.

"That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. The others that died, they died within the first twenty four hours. The fact that they've survived so long is a positive thing surely?"

"Maybe not, and don't call me Shirley." Colton answered absently, tapping her fingers over her chin. "It's wrong. Timeline is off."

"Maybe it reacts differently for everyone."

"Mm-mm." Colton shook her head. "The nanotech is a machine. Machines are predictable. If it's being unpredictable then it's mutated and that opens up a whole passel of problems like the fact we might be contagious and if that's the case they won't have to airlock us, I'll do it myself." Edric looked at her sharply. "This is the last of our entire race Edric. We can't allow our survival to supersede ours. And there's no way I'm repopulating with _you_."

"Comforted to know I'm safe from your clutches." Edric smiled tightly back at her.

"So, why do you think they're so slow at changing? This is the third stage right? So far it's taken them a day to move through each but we're moving into our fourth day and there's no change yet."

"Aye, it's like they've stalled or something."

"Maybe they ran out of fuel." Edric turned to her with a smile to see her staring at him. Her pale face dropping down another three shades of white. "Hey, I know it's my first joke but it wasn't that bad."

Colton surged to her feet. "Holy frak." She bounced on her toes, a grin changing her face as if she was lit from the inside. "Edric you fantastic man, you!" She seized him by both sides of his face and kissed him full on the mouth. "Genius! Genius, I say!" She was already running across the lab, leaving a stunned Edric staring after her for several rushed heartbeats before he scrambled out of his chair after her. He arrived to see her babbling almost incoherently at Cottle.

"I've figured it out, Doc!" She was stripping her lab coat off her body and throwing it at Edric. "Well, it was really Edric, but semantics later. Gods! It was so simple!" She was rummaging through the drawer of the medical tray that had been wheeled to the bedside so that Cottle didn't have to go back and forth between patient and cabinets. She yanked two of the largest syringes Edric had ever seen from the drawers and held their sterile packets, one in each hand before gripping Cottle's shoulders with her spare fingers. "We're not contagious." She yanked the mask she had forced Cottle to wear when the possibility had occurred to her and ripped it from his face. "Breathe the free air, Doctor!"

"Um…good?"

"No! Fan-frakking-TASTIC!" Colton had grabbed Edric having stuffed the syringes into her pockets. She was working the zipper of his flight deck overalls down (he had been spending his free time cleaning up Betty, under armed guard of course). Edric looked mildly alarmed until he realised she was just trying to get at his biological arm and he helped her by pulling the massive limb free of the material. She focused on the muscle roped appendage and stared for a long moment.

"What?"

She yanked her head back up. "You are a _freakishly _large man."

"That's what they all say." Edric flashed her his rarely used lady-killer smile. She took a moment for a long blink behind her glasses.

"You were having an epiphany?" Cottle interrupted and Colton shook herself back to the life-saving at hand.

"It wasn't us that infected them. It was Betty."

"She did nothing of the sort!" Edric leapt to his flyer's defence.

"Yes she did. I'm always right. Accept it, move on." Colton retaliated for this interruption by ripping open one of the syringes and jamming it into one of the thick veins lining his inner arm.

"Ow." He told her.

"Don't whine, it's unattractive." She drew the plunger back slowly, pulling thick dark blood from his body until the syringe was full. She lifted his hand and wrapped it around the syringe. "Hold that." She whirled back to Cottle, who couldn't have looked more clueless if he had tried.

"When you pulled us from Betty all this gunk fell out with us, right?"

"Uh…yeah."

"Yes, it did." Colton held up two fingers to show she was doubly right. "Now that gloop was formed to put us into a sort of deep-freeze hybernation state. That's what kept us unconscious for all these years and kept us from dying onboard and shrivelling into pottery laced unattractive mummies."

She hurried on when Cottle began to get impatient and started to roll back her shirtsleeve. "Now, Betty is filled with the same nanotech as we are. It runs through her like blood does us and that's how Edric's the only one that can control her. That's what made up the sludge, she formed a kind of…womb around us, if you will." Colton began to speak faster and faster as excitement overtook her. "We were COVERED in it. When Edric grabbed the President, when the Admiral grabbed me, it got all over them too. In fact, Adama got it in his mouth and the President was cut on the throat by knife-boy over there."

She hissed in pain when she pushed her own syringe into her arm and began to draw the blood as carefully as she had Edric's. She didn't stop talking though. "Didn't you say that the President's throat and Adama's mouth were swollen when they were admitted?" She didn't wait for Cottle to answer. "That's how the nanotech got into their systems. Why it _stayed_ instead of shutting down like it's programmed to because of the President's cancer and Adama because of the open heart surgery he's had and that he has enough common DNA with Edric to confuse the little frakkers." Colton was pushing Edric bodily towards Adama's bed, then uncapped the syringe he was holding and ripped off the one on her own needle. She moved to stand over the President.

"Mother always said; 'NEVER be the first to stick your face in a viscous substance, it always comes back to bite you in the ass'. She was right. Mum's are ALWAYS right."

"None of this explains why their stuck at this stage." Edric pointed out.

Colton planted her hand on her hip. Annoyed. "You know, I hope you don't have this short an attention span during sex." She held up a finger when Cottle opened his mouth to interrupt.

"They're stuck at this because, while Betty's nanotech is made in the same batch as ours it doesn't have the same coding as ours. Think of how chimpanzees are ninety nine point nine percent genetically the same as humans. That point one percent is what stops them from finishing the job. They make physical repairs and then they're designed to die off, unlike ours which are designed to replicate. The nanotech in Adama and Roslin's systems is depleted so much that it's barely keeping them alive and there aren't enough to finish the job. Essentially, their bodies have run out of the super-juice."

"So, what's with the blood?" Cottle demanded, he had a bad feeling about where this train of almost logic was headed. He had a nasty feeling about derailment being in the near future.

"They need a top up and new instructions. Edric and I are the only sources of that."

"You mean to put _that_ in _them_?!" Cottle yelled.

"_Yes_! Stop speaking in italics."

"You're not even the same blood types."

"Won't matter. I think." Colton shrugged. "It's all academic in a few hours anyway, when the nanotech in their systems finally die off and they suffocate under…this." Colton prodded at the whole body blister that both Adama and Roslin were suffering from. "Adama shares Edric's DNA and I had cancer like the Roslin does. It's their best chance."

"I can't condone this." Cottle railed at her and moved around the bed to stop her.

"Never asked you to." She glanced down at Roslin's twisted features. "Sorry if this doesn't work, Laura." A sweeping glance of bubbled skin revealed a wrinkle in Colton's plans. "No veins. Ah well, heart's on the left side, right? Here goes nothing!" Colton jammed the syringe down just left of the sternum, it caught briefly on the hard carapace that the skin had formed over the liquid caught inside. With an extra effort, Colton punched the syringe through cartilage, missing bones and piercing the labouring lump of heart muscle there with the needle. Her thumb flexed and emptied the contents of the syringe directly into the left aorta.

Edric watched her example and followed it exactly on Adama a half second later. He didn't know if this would work himself but Colton was nearly always eventually right and that was enough for him. Cottle yelled inarticulately and the armed Marines that had been escorting them everywhere and keeping a close eye on them lunged from the doorway. They reached Colton first and grabbed an arm each. There were only two of them. She allowed herself to be dragged back, attention focused solely on Roslin and Adama.

Edric suffered no such handicap. He rounded the beds and caught the nearest marine by the face. He squeezed, until the man grunted in pain at his features being scrunched to the tip of his nose, and then tossed him the length of the ward with a flick of his wrist. The next marine was caught by his belt buckle before he could bring his gun up and flung straight upwards until he smashed into the ceiling and then crashed back down to the floor. The guards posted outside the door threw open the hatch and poured inside. Edric turned, hands balled into fists and brought up ready for them.

"Look!" Colton was pointing at the beds and everybody obeyed her command and stared openly.

Roslin's eyes had flown open, her lips parting in a deep gasping influx of air to her lungs. Her back arched up off the bed as much as she was able under the hindrance of the blister covering her. She began to struggle against her bonds, hands clawing and snarled sounds like a trapped animal coming from deep inside her. In the next bed over, Adama was going through exactly the same thing.

"Get them out of here!" Colton gestured at the marines like they were naughty children and not gun-toting military men. The nurses knew that tone of command and had the marines out of the med-bay before they even knew they were being overruled by a prisoner's orders. One of them got on the horn to Colonel Tigh and another went to find him to make sure he got out of his rack and down here PDQ.

"You know what's happening?" Cottle demanded as Colton lunged to the bedside and pried Laura's lids open to check her reflexes. For the first time in days her pupils retracted to pinpoints.

"Yes. Maybe. They're not comatose anymore anyway." Colton had moved to Adama's side and did the same test. "I don't understand. The swelling should be going down." Colton was looking between her two patients, not understanding.

"Maybe it can't." Edric offered, tapping at the hard shell of skin that had encased Adama.

"Yes!" Colton snapped her fingers and pointed at Edric. "Another reason to keep you around, flyboy! Human skin is several layers thick, let's hope this works." She yanked open the med drawer and yanked out two wrapped scalpels. She tossed one to Edric, who caught it easily. "Do exactly as I do." She moved to Roslin's bed and Edric to Adama's.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Cottle gripped her wrist and that cold look of anger overtook Colton's features again. She was getting more than a little irritated with this lad constantly questioning her. "Saving their lives. I've brought them this far and I'm NOT losing them now so you can either get out of my way or I can move you."

"Colton!" Edric grabbed Adama when he snapped one of his restraints and pushed him back down onto the bed.

Colton waited. Cottle had to trust her because what she was about to do was frakking freaky. Even for her. A long moment of pained sounds from the President did the trick.

"Alright." The older doctor stepped to the side and lit a cigarette. Smoking with nervous shaking fingers.

Colton bolted past him and loomed over the twisting Roslin with her scalpel uncapped and gleaming sharp under the harsh sterile lights. She gripped Roslin's chin, forcing the other woman to remain still, placed the tip of the razor sharp scalpel at her hairline right in the centre of her forehead and drew it slowly downward, between her eyes, over the line of her nose, even over her gasping lips and down over her chin and throat. When Colton reached the neckline of the hospital gown, she ripped it aside and kept cutting. She glanced over to see Edric mimicking her on Adama's body. When she reached Roslin's navel she stopped. The skin where she had cut had split apart and thick viscous liquid was oozing out. Colton grimaced. This was why she wasn't a people doctor, they were bloody disgusting.

"Holy Gods…" Colton coughed out a trail of smoke that he had swallowed the wrong way at the sight.

"Ain't seen nothing yet, Doc. Ugh." Colton plunged her fingers into the watery blood laced pus that splattered up over her arms and stained her shirt. She could have worn overalls, but there was no time and it didn't matter anyway. She was never going to feel clean after this anyway. She gripped the hard shell of skin covering Roslin's chest. "Ever gut a Piscean Albino shark, Doctor?"

She saw him shake his head out of the corner of her eye.

"I have, their nervous system doesn't shut down until you rip out their entrails. They can still bite you even after they're brain dead." A cracked section of eggshell hard skin crackled away and splattered more fluids over Colton. It splattered dangerously close to her mouth and Colton dry heaved before she got a hold of herself. That thing masquerading as dinner had been bad enough on the way down, she had no desire to see it again. Roslin kept twisting and screaming, swearing actually, Colton hadn't heard words like that in years. She'd bet if the President ever walked into a bar, sailors would be running out of it not five minutes later.

"What's your point?" Colton asked hollow

"It was a stinking, disgusting job that I was made to do as my worst punishment and it wasn't nearly so bad as this." More pus slapped over Colton's glasses. She fought down another heave from her stomach at even the _thought_ of what it was that was liberally covering her and decided to get this over with as quickly as possible.

She began to rip into the President of the Twelve colonies like a Mountain Varg over a fresh kill. She heard the nurses gasp behind her. Someone was violently ill into the nearest rubbish bin and Colton moved up over Roslin's chest peeling back the skin over her throat and thrusting her fingers over the woman's jaw, under the skin and sloughing it back off the woman's face like she was peeling a rotten onion. The stuff coated her to her elbows, was embedded under her nails and she tried not to think about how horrific this was for Roslin. Imagine being trapped in the stuff…no, actually, better not.

Roslin burst out from under her own skin with a rasping gasp that exhaled on a horrified scream. Colton grabbed hold of her torso, pushing the last of the horribleness from the president's face and peeling it away from her hair, the back of her neck and down her back. Roslin heaved her arms from within the useless sleeves of dead skin and jelly _stuff_ that was slick inside them like she was shedding a particularly disgusting suit. She gripped Colton back so tightly that the scientist thought her lungs would never inflate properly again.

More jelly-like gunk sluiced over the sides of the gurney and splattered onto the floor. Colton had to be careful not to slip as she murmured soft words to Roslin, assuring her that she wasn't going anywhere she was going to get her out of this pronto. She stepped back, pulling Roslin with her and out of the useless crumpled cocoon that she had been trapped inside. It began to collapse in on itself.

She glanced over at Edric to see him hauling a similarly shell-shocked Adama from within his own flesh suit. When she saw the apparently seasoned medical staff staring in disgusted and slack jawed amazement.

"Well, don't just STARE, people!" She yelled at them and quieted when Roslin flinched in her arms. "Blankets. Now."

That jumpstarted everyone back into motion. Blankets were provided, the patients were moved to new, cleaner, beds and nurses began to strip down and gingerly clean up the mess they had left in the other two. Colton helped clean up Roslin, Edric helped with Adama and everyone took a huge step back when all the gunk was finally cleared. Colton's mouth worked for a moment, speechless for the first time in her life. For some incongruous reason, this hadn't occurred to her at all. She had known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that this should have happened but it was hella freaky to see in action.

"Well, that's…" Colton gestured obliquely.

"Impressive." Edric supplied.

"That'll do." Colton nodded.

It was at that moment that Saul and his trusty marine troop burst through the locked hatch with a small explosion.

"WHAT THE FRAK IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

"Hello, Saul." The deep gravel voice of Adama rumbled through the ward and Saul turned to him and promptly dropped his mouth open in shock. Then he rounded on Colton and Edric.

"What the hell have you done to him?" His eyes landed on the President and this seemed to much for him. "And her!?"

Colton actually took a step back at such ferocity and Edric moved between them and cracked his knuckles with intent at Saul.

"Good morning, Colonel Tigh." Roslin said smoothly, ever the consummate professional. Colton slipped under her arm when she was gestured to and helped Roslin to her feet. She held her blanket around herself and tucked it under her arms. Wearing it as if it was the latest thing in Caprican couture. She ran a hand through her wet hair and let it slap down her mostly bare back. She looked shaken, horrified and more than a little pissed off. Colton watched, impressed, when Laura pushed that all aside to deal with the situation, no matter how odd it was.

"It's after eleven." Colton supplied helpfully.

"Evening, whatever." Roslin waved it away. "The point is, Colonel, that this woman and her companion have just saved our lives and your bellowing is not improving the killer of a headache I have. I would appreciate it immeasurably if you'd shut the frak up." She smiled at him sweetly.

Saul opened his mouth to say something more and Adama interrupted him.

"Inside voice, remember. What's up?" He asked when Saul seemed to have forgotten how to speak.

"You're both too young!" Saul blurted and twin expressions of confusion marked the leaders' faces. They glanced over at each other and shock washed over them. Adama blinked and reared back as if slapped. Roslin nearly lost the grip on her towel and it was some strategic knotting on Colton's part that prevented embarrassment for all concerned.

"Frak me." Adama muttered.

"Sideways." Roslin echoed the sentiment and crossed the thin gap between them, reaching out in amazement and traced the sharp line of the Admiral's cheekbone. Adama tilted his head and examined Roslin's face with equal intensity. It had abruptly become clear why everybody had been gawping at them like landed catfish.

Neither of them looked a day over thirty.

**The End**

Don't worry chicas, just the end of part one. Part two is already nearly finished, i just have to wrap up chapter 4 and finish five and then it's onto part 3!!

I know, not much Rodama action in this one, so putting that as the pairing might have been slightly misleading, but there is DEFINITLY some action in the next one.

Who knew the President of the Twelve Colonies could get glomped?

On that i leave you to await the next installment, thanks for reading and reviewing.


End file.
